8 Digital Marketing Metrics You Should Track

The dawn of big data means almost no information about our customers’ behavior is out of our reach. Unfortunately, tracking hundreds of different marketing metrics for every campaign can prove to be an overabundance of information. However, measuring the success, and sometimes failure of your marketing efforts can help cultivate continued success. With all of the demographics, behavioral patterns and information available to marketers today, we’re going to address eight important digital marketing metrics that you can (and should!) track that will help improve your marketing success.

Website Based Metrics

Traffic

If you have a website, the most fundamental metric you should track is traffic (both unique visitors and page views). The more traffic you have coming to your site, the more likely you are to convert some of those visitors into customers. Focus on traffic by channel (organic, referrals, social, etc.) and page-by-page data to identify the strongest conversion funnels and pages that need improvement.

Goals and Leads

Different pages on your site should create different types of leads which you can assign as goals in Google Analytics. Whether it’s subscribing to your blog or downloading a white paper, understanding which pages andwhich types of content are generating the most leads is crucial in converting those inbound leads to customers. Assign a specific dollar value to individual goals based on their past conversion rate to paint a more accurate picture.

Social Media Metrics

Reach

While reach is a soft metric, it’s still important to understand how many eyes could potentially be landing on your social media content. Organically increasing page likes and followers means you’re doing something right, and increased reach should equate to increased engagement. If it’s not, the content you’re sharing needs to be adjusted to better suit your audience, or your audience has a low relevancy to your brand and end goals.

Engagement

Engagement may be critical forsocial media success, but it doesn’t always translate to hard conversions on your website. Regardless, engagement is a key indicator of building brand identity and whether you’re sharing the right content for your audience. If your reach, engagement, and traffic from social channels are all increasing, so should your leads and revenue attributable to those channels.

PPC Metrics

CTR (Click Through Rate)

Any pay-per-click campaign is going to be driven by your click-through-rate. A high CTR means your PPC targeting was effective and drove traffic to your website or landing page. But a high CTR also doesn’t tell the whole story behind a successful PPC campaign.

CPC (Cost Per Click)

Typically, a high CTR means that your CPC should be lower, as it took fewer impressions to get the same number of clicks on an ad. But depending on how much you’re bidding this can vary across campaigns. While CTR and CPC important marketing metrics in the PPC world, they are both irrelevant when considered apart from additional metrics both in PPC campaigns and beyond.

Performance Metrics

Conversion Rates

Conversion rates are one of the most important digital marketing metrics, no matter which type of campaign you’re running. Conversion rates from your landing page, conversion rates from social, and conversion rates from a lead who downloaded a white paper are all highly relevant in determining your marketing effectiveness. Without conversion rates, most of the other marketing metrics out there lose their ability to truly determine success. Conversion rates should be tracked at every step of your purchase funnel from every different source in order to identify leaks and stop them. Tools such as Kissmetrics can offer more detailed data on purchase funnels you define all across your site.

ROI

ROI is the last word in the success of any marketing campaign. Even with increased website traffic, industry-leading conversion rates on your social media, and well-targeted PPC campaigns, the amount of money you invested in generating those conversions ultimately determines their value.

Calculating ROI individually across channels and campaigns can be a time-consuming endeavor, but it is the only way to accurately identify your most successful channels and make informed decisions about where your digital marketing budget should be allocated in the future.

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UNION is a digital marketing agency founded in 2002 and headquartered in Charlotte, NC. Considered a digital marketing leader, UNION collaborates with many of the Southeast region's top brands to achieve business objectives through strategy, creative and technology. The agency specializes in crafting digital marketing platforms, content and campaigns that deliver meaningful and measurable ROI results. Want to work with us?

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